The reasons for this discrepancy are obvious to anyone with any working
knowledge of the Internet. They are twofold:
do say. :-)
1) Trademark enforcement against DNS names at levels below those assigned
by TLD registries, or against directory names used within Web sites, is a
practical impossibility. The vast majority of names at these levels are
assigned for private use by the holders of the parent domain name, not by
publicly accessible registries.
Mark Lottor seems to have had no problem compiling them for the
past 15 years. Maybe he doesn't realize this is a practical impossibility.
Private use? If they are being used on the Internet, it would
appear by definition the use is public. Maybe you could explain
this private-public distinction. That's a new one.
2) In part because of point 1, consumers' beliefs about the ownership of
Web sites and e-mail addresses are typically based on the second-level
domain names (or third-level for registries that do not directly delegate
SLDs), not domain names at lower levels or directory names. The likelihood
of consumer confusion based on these names is consequently too small to
concern most trademark holders.
So the test is "the liklihood of consumer confusion," and there
is no issue with, for example, porsche.aol.com?
--tony
